The Annapolis Yacht Club (AYC) is pleased to announce that Tomás Ruiz de Luque has assumed the role of Optimist Team Head Coach. Tomás will head the Optimist Team and play a vital role in establishing continuity within the program by ensuring sailors have a clear progression through AYC’s learn-to-sail summer programs, learn-to-race Green Fleet program, and Race Team.

Tomás was born in Argentina and was most recently a resident of Buenos Aires. He graduated from Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina in 2007 with a BA in Business Administration. His sailing background includes competition in seven World Championships and seven South American Championships in several different boats.

For the past two summers, Tomás has worked as an Optimist Race coach at the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club in Oyster Bay, NY. During the rest of the year in Argentina, he continued coaching Laser Radial sailors leading up to several World Championships.

His background in Optimists, Laser Radials, and 29ers, coupled with years of coaching experience at the World level, make him an ideal candidate to provide this same world-class training to the AYC Optimist Team.

Spring practices at AYC will begin on Friday, February 15 with a series of weekend race clinics led by Tomás. AYC will also host team SailStrong during these clinics. Full-time spring season Opti sailing begins on Tuesday, March 5.

Eye On Annapolis is a community based site focusing strictly on Anne Arundel County. These staff postings are general news postings made by our team of bloggers throughout the day and are not attributed to any one particular staff person.